This invention relates generally to fast food service techniques, and more particularly to a technique wherein a meal is first cooked, then refrigerated and stored and subsequently reheated without degrading the basic texture, flavor and nutritional qualities of the meal.
The inflated cost of conventional restaurant service and the tendency of many Americans to eat on the run has brought about major changes in American eating habits. Thus, the typical American tourist with a family to feed can illafford to stop at a three-star road-side restaurant, for such restaurants are effectively reserved for those whose means are well above average and who can spare the time to have a meal freshly prepared, cooked and served by a waiter who must be tipped.
To meet the growing need for quickly-prepared, low-cost meals, fast-food operations have been developed in which the food to be served is deep freezed and stored, and when an order is placed for a particular item on the menu, the selected item is withdrawn from the freezer and cooked. In some cases, the frozen meal is pre-cooked so that it is only necessary to thaw and reheat the meal.
Though fast food techniques of the type heretofore known make possible relatively inexpensive meals and expedite service, the meals provided thereby are often unappetizing. The reason for this is that while freezing is effective in preserving food and in minimizing contamination, it often does so at the expense of the quality and flavor of the product. In the course of freezing, the moisture content of the food is converted into ice crystals which act destructively, for they rupture the internal structure of the food. As a consequence, frozen food has a characteristically tasteless and mushy quality.
Moreover, in reheating a pre-cooked frozen meal, it is difficult when going from the frozen state to an adequately heated condition to avoid a situation in which the core of the product is still cold even though the outer layer is quite hot. And when one seeks to ensure that the body of the food is hot throughout, there is a tendency to overheat the meal and thereby re-cook it, with a resultant loss of nutritional value and flavor.
Another factor which militates against the success of self-service fast food techniques is that the heated food is necessarily stored in a closed heat chamber which must be opened to obtain access to the product. In a mass feeding operation in which a large number of heated meals must be stored in readiness for withdrawal by customers, this involves a complicated multi-compartment structure, each with a separate door that must be opened to remove the meal and then closed.